East of west

9:48 a.m., Santa Fe

2010-03-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

As I begin to finalize plans for this upcoming fall, I'm realizing how soon all of these changes are going to materialize. Essentially I have one more month of normalcy before my life takes a turn for the awesome. My sublet is up at the end of April and because I am trying to save up cash for travels, I have secured a spot in my friend's front yard to set up my tent for May/June. Yes, I will become a hobo-drifter. Not only is that another $1200 in my pocket from not having to pay rent, but I'm envisioning long nights spent next to a small fire, getting yelled at by my friend for making a fire in her front yard, and brisk morning walks to the bathroom...paradise.
Either way I'll be in Ireland and the UK for half of May so it won't be so bad. I'm really looking forward to visiting the motherland and checking out my school in London. I'm half expecting to run into some evil twin version of myself in Galway. Come June 30th I will have had my final day of this tedious job and hopefully will have packed up much of my belongings and shipped them to my mother's house. Then I'm hoping a train to LA to stay with a friend for two weeks, then another train up to San Francisco, staying 2 weeks, then riding my bike from San Fran up to Oregon on highway 1 for a few weeks. It feels great to have fairly loose plans/no plans until September. For now, back to work, to sleep and to dreaming.

8:03 a.m., Santa Fe

2010-03-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

It's official. On Monday I was accepted to Univ of London's School of Oriental and African Studies for a Masters in Near and Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic. I had originally applied to grad school as sort of a back up or additional option to Peace Corps and after months and months of waiting to hear from the PC my priorities shifted. Frankly, if Peace Corps is going to remain viable through the next few decades they're going to need to do some MAJOR restructuring.

Regardless, I am absolutely thrilled to finally be going back to school and study what I'm passionate about and on top of that live in foggy London town. To those of you still waiting patiently for word from PC, I wish you the best of luck on your upcoming adventures and I will continue this blog as sort of a journal of my travels and studies. Toodles!

8:28 a.m., SF

2010-02-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

Foggy morning in the desert. I typically ride my bike to work; down an extremely busy street filled with angry commuters. I got to thinking this morning, are the health benefits of riding my bike everywhere overshadowed by the exhaust I inhale while exerting myself on the streets of my fair city? Quite honestly if I end up with lung cancer at the age of 35 because of years of bike commuting I'm going to be pretty mad at all of you drivers out there. Anyways, morning routine of late:

1) Wake up at 6:30 a.m. before my alarm
2) Go to the Daily Show website and watch choice clips from the previous night
3) Lay in my bed for another 5-10 mins gathering up the energy to get out of bed and ride my bike in the cold.
4) Buy coffee at this bakery by my work, chat with employees.
5) Get to work, drink coffee, read all relevant Peace Corps blogs and lose just a tiny bit more of my sanity waiting.
6) Get more and more excited about the potential for next fall!

I hope hope hope Peace Corps lets me back in (still waiting on Placement), otherwise grad school. But, either way hopefully this time next year I'll be chipping away at my goals and living some place where I feel challenged. Ok, back to reading all the other blogs.

8:49 a.m., SF

2010-02-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

Finally got an email from School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, regarding my application.

I submitted my application online on or about January 7, 2010. My references were all submitted on January 22, 2010. When I was filling out the online application I sort of jumped the gun and selected four referees with whom I had not previously discussed my application. Long story short, only two of them were able to complete letters for me in a timely manner due to professional obligations…to be expected. I then had my third reference emailed to the SOAS dept of postgraduate admissions (which they tell you to do on their website).

Once I had confirmation that the three letters were in, I made an expensive call to London to confirm that their system was showing my application as "completed and ready for review". Perhaps it's my own naivety, but British folks generally sound fairly competent...a result of our (American) constant reminder in film of British intellectual prowess and worldliness. With that said, it took about five minutes before I realized that the woman with whom I was speaking was a complete moron and could not seem to grasp the concept I outlined above re: my application.

After I hung up, feeling unsatisfied, I phoned again and asked to speak with someone else. This new woman, while much more helpful, also failed to answer my questions or physically look into my application to check on its status.

After a week or so I decided to phone again to follow up. I got the same woman as before. Great. I explained to her that yes I had called before, but that I would like her to physically check into my application as there had been some confusion with the references letters (admittedly my fault). She scoffed and said "ok, what's your student reference number?" I gave it to her and she said "well it looks like we don't have any letters of reference for you". WHAT? How is that possible, I have 3 confirmation emails from SOAS saying that they received them? "Oh wait, here they are. We have three, ok bye!" And she hangs up without actually answering my question. I called right back and was connected to another person in the department.

"So the previous woman I spoke to hung up on me without actually answering my question. I want to make sure that your system shows my application as ready for review because there was some confusion with the reference letters, which you now have." Finally, this woman (hereinafter described as Savior) went to check on my printed out application. Savior then informed me that yes, my application had been moved from the 'waiting for further information' pile to the 'ready for review' pile. S. told me that I would be emailed later in the week when my file was being reviewed.

Luckily I got an email later in the day and my application packet is now under review by the admissions dept of University of London. I'm doing some intense finger crossing these next few weeks.

**This sounds way more confusing than it actually is. However, I can’t even seem to write it simply. Either way it should be straightened out!**

In other news I got a new tattoo this weekend which was super, super fun. After living in the southwest for 6 years or so I thought it might be time to memorialize it, so i drew this up on Thursday and got it pounded into my skin on Saturday. Here's some pictures! (They are a little wacky, hard to take a picture of the back of your own arm!)

2010-01-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

More images from a snowy Santa Fe, taken from my phone at 12,000 + feet.

8:25 a.m., SF

2010-01-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

Here's picture from snowy Santa Fe. Bike ride home from work, saw this, almost fell off my bike, too beautiful. Sangre de Cristo Mountains...scary name.

2010-01-21T10:56:00.001-08:00

3:13 pm, SF

2010-01-19T14:12:00.000-08:00

Woke up to a bit of a blizzard this morning. Well, more accurately, I was woken up by a brilliantly orange colored sky at about 3:00 am, at which point, I noticed a significant amount of snow. I'm not from Santa Fe, I'm from Chicago. I've only lived here for about seven months. But, I am told that almost every time the sky turns orange we have a blizzard. Kind of a beautiful/fantastic/bizarre phenomenon.

As I read more blogs of fellow applicants I'm feeling a bit of negativity and general antsyness regarding people's applications. Let me say these words of encouragement as a person who has already been through the entire process:

IT TAKES A LONG TIME! Don't be surprised if you don't hear from them for months. This isn't to say that I haven't been feeling extremely anxious this time around, in fact I think it's worse than last time, but just immerse yourself in the present as much as you can. Those of you that are sort of putting things on hold until you feel better prepared, I think this is a wonderfully mature thing to come to terms with. I myself was guilty of jumping the gun with service last time and it ended up costing me about two years of serious contemplation and hard work. If you don't feel ready, then put it off, it will always be there. It's hard when you've told friends and family that you're doing Peace Corps and now you're having second thoughts, but it's better than terminating early. Peace Corps makes us wait for precisely this reason, 27 months is a long time and we need to be ready.

As a person who ETed, I had to go through some very serious hurdles to make it this far (nomination) again and there's no telling whether or not Placement will turn me down. It's likely that they will. It is extremely rare that a person in my position gets nominated again and I have yet to come in contact with anyone that has even tried to reapply, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. But I think it's wise to apply for a few things at once; grad school, other volunteer organizations and not put all of your eggs in one basket. I wish you all the best and I do hope that we can all make our dreams come true. Keep your heads up and whatever luck we do have is likely to work in our favor. <3

8:32 am, SF

2010-01-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

Still no new from Peace Corps, which actually isn't THAT surprising considering I was nominated for a fall 2010 post. I'm starting to sort of accept that I won't hear back for several months and it's a relief. I submitted my application to University of London on Friday and, remarkably, I believe I hear back before Peace Corps. I'm still working on applications to a few other schools just to have a few options come spring. For those of you who have the waiting blues, I'd recommend either taking the GRE, LSAT, (other acronym for grad school test), or applying to schools. It has significantly reduced the stress I've been feeling. I know that after all of the rigors of Peace Corps application another seems daunting, but either way it's a great distraction! To those of you already getting your invites congrats! To those of you nominated for fall 2010, take your time getting your stuff into Peace Corps, we're not gonna hear anytime soon either way. Ok, back to tapping my foot and writing statements of purpose...

9:21 am, Santa Fe

2010-01-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write and ask if anyone has been nominated for the South Pacific for Fall of 2010? I think we should all band together and pool our collective intellects/resources to try and tease out some sort of potential invite date and potential countries. So far I've deduced that, out of the five potential countries in the South Pacific only Tonga, Vanuatu and Samoa have education listed as work areas. I was nominated for English education, therefore it would seem that one of those countries are the match. Now, staging dates. Vanuatu (September), Tonga (October), and Samoa (October). SO, as I cannot remember if they gave me a specific month at nomination (I believe she just said fall, I'm at work so I can't check the nomination letter), it would seem like Vanuatu is the most likely....which is fine with me, that place is gorgeous. But, let's work together and figure this out. I may be the only person nominated that far out right now, I have a feeling that my recruiter did this to torture me because she was somewhat evil. Hope to hear from some of you soon!

8:53 am, Santa Fe

2010-01-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

I just reread this in Pandey's book, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India, and thought I'd share it as it has been instrumental in my understanding of contemporary historical theory and method.

“The discipline of history still proceeds on the assumption of a fixed subject – society, nation, state, community, locality, whatever it might be – and a largely pre-determined course of human development or transformation. However, the agent and locus of history is hardly pre-designated. Rather, accounts of history, of shared experiences in the past, serve to constitute these, their extent and their boundaries” - Gyanendra Pandey

Amazing.

12:47 pm, Santa Fe

2010-01-04T11:47:00.001-08:00

2010! I've never been one for resolutions or regrets or any of that nonsense. With that said, I plan to make 2010 the year of living in the present. It is all too often that we (humanity) get way ahead of ourselves and forget to appreciate the lives we are living TODAY. I have certainly been guilty of this, on a grand scale, since my graduation from college in 2007. Rather than marking x's on the calendar until I hear from Peace Corps, I'm going to go out, make new friends, have fun, and work on things that make me happy. Because when it comes down to it, we are going to end up missing our friends and family and everyday things like hot showers and cold weather (for those of us nominated to the equatorial regions).

In the meantime, I'm applying to a few graduate programs in History that I am almost equally excited about as Peace Corps. The first, the Masters of Islamic Societies and Cultures, through the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, sounds incredible.

So, as I said, lets make 2010 a year of contemplation, action and success. It's ok to work for the future, but lets not forget all the beautiful things that happen day to day.

9:10 am, Santa Fe

2009-12-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

In order to remain diligent with this blog and not lose my mind waiting for word from Placement, I'm going to try and post once a week until I hear from them.

I just got back from a lovely trip to Chicago to see friends and family and now I'm back to work in Santa Fe. This morning I've been reading other applicant's blogs on peacecorpsjournals.com, searching for some sort of clue as to when I might hear from placement. It's bizarre that I don't seem to remember anything about this process from the last time I applied. This time I'm keeping a good record so I can share it with other potential applicants to help ease the tension of waiting. It would seem, from my previous application and from these blogs, that typically you do not received your invitation packet until two months before your departure date. In the case of my invite to Cambodia I didn't hear until a June 1 and I left for Cambodia July 20. So I'm not quite sure what to think. I was nominated for fall of 2010 so, doing some quick math, I would hear in June at the earliest....yikes. So I'm crossing my fingers that I hear back A LOT sooner than that. I am applying to graduate school as a backup, but I would love to hear yes or no from Peace Corps before I go spending hundreds of dollars on applications!

In other news, I'm moving out of my current house into a much nicer, cheaper house a few blocks away tonight. Maybe there will be a invitation packet waiting for me when i get there.

3:08 pm, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2009-12-22T14:08:00.000-08:00

So after about a year and six months of silence I'm back. No I didn't get swallowed up in some tropical storm or buried in a mud slide... no this is a tale of hardship, bad decisions, better decisions, some more bad ones, monotony, and then some more good decisions. As you may have guessed I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia with the K2 group for about 10 days in 2008. Now that 2010 approaches and my *current* Peace Corps application is pending I felt like it was a good time to write.

After my last post I was sort of preoccupied with visiting my friends and family in Chicago, gathering necessary resources, and saying last goodbyes to great friends. After a somewhat epic summer of adventuring and living in rural AZ, I was off to the wild unknown…San Francisco. Just kidding Cambodia. The first day of staging was incredibly exciting. It was great to finally meet the people that I was about to spend two years of my life with. One thing I can say for Peace Corps is that they definitely know how to pick 'em. Our group bonded pretty quickly and went on several small excursions into San Francisco. I got to spend some much needed quality time with my dad and my brother and I managed stay out late and get me back to Japantown.

After two days of staging in a basement conference room of the Kobuki Hotel, our group was off to the airport in a large party bus. We were all somewhat flustered trying to make sure we had all of our bags, passports, money, etc. I don't know about the other volunteers but I was under the impression that we would be accompanied by a PC staff member. We weren't. But, the airport staff was very helpful and we all got through ok. I have to say the flight to Tokyo was GREAT. I sat next to a good, new friend and we watched probably six or seven movies and drank a bit. We finally arrived in Tokyo with enough time to eat some sushi, drink a bit of Sake, and try the shrimp burger from McDonald's. And then...back on the plane. This time to Bangkok and 9ish hour flight. We reluctantly got back onto the plane where I said to my friend "there's no way that I can handle another long flight", she replied "I have some prescription sleeping pills..". And that's about the last thing I remember until we landed in Bangkok. I woke up thinking I had only slept about an hour and my buddy tells me "no way man, you were out for about 8 1/2 hours we're about to land in Bangkok". etc, etc, etc, we arrive in Cambodia at about two in the afternoon after about 30 hours of travel time and 2 hours of sleep. (excluding my drug induced coma). We were greeted by some of the K1 volunteers and PC staff and were whisked off in a tiny, tiny bus to a hotel and then to PC headquarters. The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of scooters (aka motos), the lack of street signs, street lights, stop signs, adherence to traffic laws (if they exist), and that you can easily fit 4-5 people on the back of a scooter. We arrived at the hotel, finally unpacked our things and set off to a luncheon at a local restaurant. Our first taste of Khmer food! I was somewhat surprised at how much I enjoyed it. After all the talk of adjusting to local diets and all.

The next few hours are a bit fuzzy, but that evening we got invited to a sort of meet and greet with the PC Cambodia staff on a smallish boat on the Mekong River. That’s right the Mekong! It was somewhat bizarre that the view of the riverfront was largely obstructed from view, walled out from the city. We walked down a narrow gangway onto the small boat and greeted our Cambodian counterparts with the very, very limited Kmae we had learned throughout the day. Sitting at the edge of the boat I could see a monsoon storm brewing in the distance. I got a chance to finally have some wind in my face and do a bit of socializing after the very long journey. We had a sort of banquet set up in the middle of the boat, followed by traditional Cambodian dancing and music.

We stayed out pretty late on our little Mekong party boat and when we started back to the hotel it had gotten dark. We had a fleet of Tuk Tuks (a scooter attached to a carriage, aka the most excellent mode of transportation ever devised) waiting for us on the street. We all hopped in and were reminded to keep our valuables in close to our bodies to prevent “snatching”.

The next two days were filled with various administrative tasks at PC headquarters and very little time to explore Phnom Penh. Our arrival coincided with a somewhat historic event, the national elections. The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, had been in power for quite some time and there was talk of a potential upset at the polls. PC thought it best if we avoided the capital city for a few weeks until things settled down.

We left the city early in the morning by bus and headed toward the outskirts of Phnom Penh. We passed through mile after mile of heavily populated suburbs and finally into endless rice paddy/river delta. Kampong Chanang Province would be our home for the next few weeks until we moved to our training villages and host families.

We began a fairly intensive series of language, cultural, and medical seminars aimed at giving us a crash course in all things Cambodia. Since the sun goes down so early, we would typically end our days at four or five and then go to dinner at one of two spots up the road.

*Brief note on animals*

Cows, chickens, feral dogs/cats, all wander the streets as if they own the place. I literally saw a cow look both ways before crossing the busy road…I’m not joking it was amazing. The dogs can be a bit ferocious, but are generally pretty kind if you have some food to give them. I saw one very small “lap dog”-type dog mating with three or four females inside of a restaurant.

Anyways, our nights were mostly occupied by soccer games, basketball or ultimate Frisbee at the local high school’s fields. And Ultimate friends, if you ever hear of a Cambodian ultimate team you have me to thank!

Around about day five I started having a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. No, this wasn’t a parasite. It was a seed of doubt that would end up growing into an unavoidable mass that made me terminate service after a very brief stint.

I can honestly say that I loved, with all of my heart, the people I was with, the country I was placed, the food/culture/music, everything about the entire experience. But I felt like I rushed into my first stint in the Peace Corps. For whatever reason I decided to apply before I was really emotionally ready. And after a few days of deliberation, I made the extremely difficult decision to terminate.

After 10 days in the Peace Corps I was once again back in Arizona. I was confused, upset, nervous, and sort of angry with myself for leaving but I have to say, for the time being, I was relieved. I knew from the day I decided to terminate that I planned to reapply a year or so later.

After a year of working in Arizona I decided in August, 2009 that I was not only ready, but anxious to reapply to Peace Corps. As it is not very common for those who terminate to reapply, PC headquarters was somewhat confused with the protocol. The first conversation with the Dallas office I was told that I would now need three months of ESL teaching experience to qualify, along with eight recommendation letters (including one from a person I volunteered with, a Peace Corps, Cambodia staff member, current and former employers, etc). I was not particularly surprised with these new requirements and had actually already begun to volunteer as an ESL instructor after moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letters were not hard to get. I had kept in touch with the majority of my volunteer friends in Cambodia as well as my former medical officer who had finished service and now lived in Pecos, New Mexico (about 30 miles from Santa Fe). Linda (the medical officer) was extremely encouraging and helpful and without her I would probably have never gotten as far with this process as I have.

I submitted my application in August and was contacted frequently by my recruiter in Dallas for additional information. Including two additional essays, more letters of recommendation, amended resume, etc. In October I was asked to fly to Dallas to interview with my recruiter.

This trip deserves a few words. I left on a Wednesday evening after work, on the commuter train to Albuquerque. Stayed in a cheap hotel. Set five alarms on my phone to wake up…I was a bit paranoid. Woke up at 5 am and figured I’d grab some food and walk to the airport. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to walk to an airport but it’s not possible. There aren’t pedestrian crossings or sidewalks anywhere. I began to think I was going to miss my flight and called a cab. Made it on the plane with about 15 minutes to spare. Landed in Dallas, cab to the Peace Corps office downtown. I was about two hours early. I walked around downtown Dallas for a bit, saw an old courthouse, had a 72 oz coke, good times. I decided to just show up a bit early for my interview, I was already sweating a bit and wanted to relax for a minute before having what I knew was going to be an extremely difficult interview.

My recruiter called me into her office, decorated with the usual Peace Corps décor and asked me to have a seat. Now, let me just mention how great my original Peace Corps interview had been. So relaxed, so friendly, just really a very positive experience…this, however, was the exact opposite. I expected the interview to delve into my reasons for leaving, but what I did not expect was the extremely probing and what I felt to be irreverent lines of questioning. I was told repeatedly that “you got the hardest recruiter” by the recruiter herself. That being said, I answered her questions as best I could, trying to prove to her that in this past year and a half I had grown emotionally, supplemented my resume with great professional experience, and done a great deal of volunteer work, but she wouldn’t let me get a word in. After an hour and a half of very emotional questioning it seemed like there was absolutely no way in hell this woman was going to nominate me. She said “well, we’ll see what happens I’ll let you know in a few weeks, do you have anything else to add”. I basically reiterated my point that I have been extremely committed to this application from the beginning, additional experience, etc. And left her office feeling utterly defeated. After months of hard and diligent work on my application I was going to be turned down. I took a cab back to the airport, wandered around feeling somewhat lost emotionally and grabbed some coffee and some pulp novel from the airport bookstore. I ignored several calls from well wishers and then I got a call from a Texas area code. I pick up and it’s my recruiter. “Quinn, I just wanted to call and tell you I went ahead and nominated you for an ESL position in the South Pacific”. WOAH, seriously? After all that. So it was, on October 18, 2009 I was once again nominated for the Peace Corps. I quickly phoned the people who called me and told them the good news and hopped on the plane back to New Mexico.

After about a week I got my medical kit in the mail. I, however, do not have insurance. I was trying to figure out the finances in my head; how much did all of this cost last time, when could I come up with the money, etc. After a few days of contemplation, I wrote to my friend Linda in Pecos and mentioned the situation, she offered to give me a physical and blood work at her clinic for $150! I got the medical kit finished in a week and half, mailed it next day shipping to D.C. and began my least favorite part of this process, the waiting game. Through some sort of miracle OMS was able to process my medical kit and approve me by December 4 and now I’m waiting to hear from Placement on whether or not they’ll give me another shot at service. As of December 22 I have yet to hear from them, but, judging by the process last time, it will be quite awhile before I hear anything.

As this post is already a lot longer than you want to read, I’m only going to say a few more things re: Peace Corps and hopefully they’ll help out some random applicant or potential applicant in the future.

Please, Please, Please make sure you’re ready for service. It is an extremely challenging and rewarding experience that you need to take the time to prepare for. The application process is vigorous and slow for good reason, they want you to make sure that you have absolutely thought things through and that you’re committed. In my case, I guess I fooled myself into thinking I was. But after a year and a half of consideration I can honestly say that I’ve never been as well prepared for anything in my life. I know what to expect, I know how it feels to be in-country, to terminate, to come back to the states, to talk with friends that are still in-country and I’m glad for that experience…but I don’t wish it on anyone else. So if you have any questions or concerns feel free to email me any time.

Hopefully, I will be posting with much greater frequency in the near future. I’m sure I will have another post concerning my invitation or decline letter. For now I’m going to have to immerse myself in some sort of hobby or cryogenically freeze myself until the letter comes.

4:26 am, Arizona

2008-06-08T04:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing: I've waited about 5 months now to find out where the Peace Corps is going to send me, what's another week right? Some friends and I went backpacking in Bryce Canyon, Utah last week (the week that my invitation letter was supposed to come) and I, regreatebly, had a hard time focusing on the beauty of the whole experience. In the back of my mind was a constant, nagging sensation reminding me that the document that holds the next two years of my life may or may not have been delivered to my house. I asked my roommate/friend to send me a text message with the country in it hoping that at some high point in the canyon I would get service. After three days of adventuring in Bryce Canyon we hiked out, hoping to hitch a ride back to the car. Unfortunately, it had snowed the night before at it was 7:30 am, our plan of hitching a ride was foiled. After Andrew and I had walked about 3 and a half miles my phone exploded with messages....none of which contained the information I had been waiting for. We hiked the 2 more miles back to the car and picked up our friend Andy who had some problems with blistering caused by his expensive new hiking boots. We eventually made it back to Flagstaff and I made my way to Cornville hoping that the invite had arrived in the mail, no luck. I drove the bumpy road to my house feeling a bit frustrated, my future seemed to elude even the US Postal Service. Later that day I decided to go to the grocery store and hopped back on the road. I started to think that maybe my invite had been shoved into my neighbor's mailbox, after all they are always messing up our rural address. About half-way down the road my neighbor flagged me down from his truck. He had received my invite and for some odd reason had opened it. "Cambodia", he said, "I don't really know what they were talking about, but it said something about Cambodia". SO, after 5 long months of waiting the Peace Corps is sending me to Cambodia on July 20th and I couldn't be more excited.

5:34 am, Arizona

2008-06-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

After several months of planning/struggling through the madness of the Peace Corps application process I am finally about to receive my invitation letter! I have been told that my assignment will be english teaching somewhere in S.E. Asia, I will find out more specifically on Monday when the invitation letter arrives. I plan to use this blog fairly frequently during my assignment to keep you all posted on my progress and to share photos. My life so far: 18 years of rain and snow, 5 years of sweet smelling desert air and great friends, 2 years of the unknown.